


Revelation 2:10

by churchonthehill



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Crucifixion, I think that's everything, Other, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, bastard man philosophizes over his arch enemy's crucified body, idk what else there is to add
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 02:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17716658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/churchonthehill/pseuds/churchonthehill
Summary: The tag needs good Kiritsugu / Kirei dynamic fic.





	Revelation 2:10

**Author's Note:**

> A mess of good intentions gone wrong. You strike a match on yourself to keep others warm, and now the whole goddamn world's on fire. You try to put it out, and you try so hard. The dam breaks, and the waters of your sorrow pour free. You are sorry; so very, very, sorry. And you will drown everyone to prove it.

The Madonna is fashioned from little misshapen squares of painted glass, encased in an arch-shaped window. 

Kiritsugu doesn’t go to church. He is not a pious man. He bows at the feet of no god. No man. 

Thus, his presence here is one struck at the core with irony. A cold-blooded killer in the home of the Holy Ghost. How much blood has spilled at his feet like communion wine? And though he’d never kept count, he wonders - purely from vainglory- if the Good Lord would find it in his giving heart to forgive him. 

His expression vacant, he looks to the dome ceiling with a soft sigh. Above, there are various frescos painted in mock of biblical scenes. Among the figures, he can make out Adam, Christ, and that whom appears to be God himself, all absorbed in a blanket of fluffy white clouds and a sea of blue.

Is this what Heaven looks like? If so, he’s not too sure he wants to go. To be part of this boastful triumvirate.

In some ways, he had already willingly sacrificed himself. In most ways, the soul, the very foundation of most religious theology - his soul - was already in a state of decay. All that remained was this body, a casing to house the Greatest Evil.

He turns his head to the side, cheek pressed against the cold linoleum ground. 

Kirei Kotomine strips him of his layers one-by-one, his fingers ever nimble, until his torso is fully exposed under the ocher light.

His shoulders tense, the pulp of him exposed to the cold air like an open wound. Below the lamina of his heavy overcoat, he is almost painfully thin - with full due intent, something was, quite literally, eating away at him. The flanks of his hips form a swooping bowl, sallow flesh sucked between the spaces in his ribs, each bone becomes horrifyingly visible.

In his hands, the Priest holds a worn bible. He turns a page, running his finger down its length before looking to Kiritsugu with a vile grin. He clears his throat, his dark voice resonating against the church walls. 

“ Do not fear what you are about to suffer.” He crows with a smirk. “ Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested -” 

Kirei reveals a single black key, and without hesitation, without a wavering thought or a second of regret, he presses the blade-tip to the center of Kirtisugu’s calloused palm, twisting it by its hilt, and allows the key to sink further into the flesh below. Silence follows the unpleasant breaking of bones and a strained noise from the back of Kiritsugu's throat.

Kirei looks to him with bitter-adoration, watching as cruor pools at his feet.

“ And you will have tribulation for ten days.” The second black key is revealed; Kirei grips it between his knuckles so tightly they turns white. “ So…”

“ Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” And he is given no opportunity to recollect himself, as the final blade skewers the remaining hand, bile rising to the back of his throat. The pain is immeasurable, the thin membrane which holds his extremities in place wholly turned to dust.

His stare pools with black; he feels nothing. This is the price paid by martyrs. 

The martyrdom of Saint Me. 

“ You are terrible, Emiya Kiritsugu, whether you invoke terror or are something terrific being uncertain. You should be pleased to look like a plague.”

A pause, the Priest bends to his knees, kneeling before the man-he-made-saint with a sickly-saccharine expression. He takes great care in brushing a stray charcoal strand from Kirtisugu’s forehead, as if preserving him pristine matters anymore.

“ You have come to conquer, and perhaps, you have won. But by no right, are you divine.”


End file.
